Species’ cognitive traits are shaped by their ecology, and even within a species, cognition can reflect the behavioural requirements of individuals with different roles. Social insects have a number of discrete roles (castes) within a colony and thus offer a useful system to determine how ecological requirements shape cognition. Bumblebee queens are a critical point in the lifecycle of their colony, since its future success is reliant on a single individual's ability to learn about floral stimuli while finding a suitable nest site; thus, one might expect particularly adept learning capabilities at this stage. I compared wild Bombus vosnesenskii queens and workers on their ability to learn a colour association and found that queens performed better than workers. In addition, queens of another species, B. insularis, a cuckoo species with a different lifecycle but similar requirements at this stage, performed equally well as the non-parasitic queens. To control for differences in foraging experience, I then repeated this comparison with laboratory-based B. impatiens and found that unmated queens performed better than workers. These results add to the body of work on how ecology shapes cognition and opens the door to further research in comparative cognition using wild bees.

物种的认知特征是由它们的生态所塑造的，即使在一个物种内部，认知也可以反映不同角色个体的行为要求。群居昆虫在一个群体中具有许多离散的角色（种姓），因此提供了一个有用的系统来确定生态需求如何塑造认知。大黄蜂蜂后是蜂群生命周期中的一个关键点，因为它未来的成功取决于单个个体在找到合适的巢址时了解花卉刺激的能力；因此，在这个阶段，人们可能会期待特别熟练的学习能力。我比较了野生Bombus vosnesenskii 蜂王和工蜂学习颜色联想的能力，发现蜂王比工蜂表现得更好。此外，另一个物种的皇后，B. insularis是一种生命周期不同但在此阶段要求相似的杜鹃物种，其表现与非寄生蜂后一样好。为了控制觅食经验的差异，我随后与基于实验室的凤仙花进行了比较，发现未交配的蜂王比工蜂表现得更好。这些结果增加了关于生态如何塑造认知的工作主体，并为使用野生蜜蜂进行比较认知的进一步研究打开了大门。